Assorted Fireworks
by greenconverses
Summary: Featuring a CadmanMcKay cat fight, irate Canadians, irresponisble Marines, and explosives. A Fourth of July picnic Atlantis style. Strong language warning.


**Author's notes:** A little late posting, but it's still fits. Wrote this while I was selling fireworks over the Fourth weekend. The temptation was too great to resist. There's a bit of language right away, just a warning. No spoilers that I can think of.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own _Stargate Atlantis_ - that's MGM's domain.

**Assorted Fireworks**

"McKay, you stay 300 feet the fuck away or I'm going to put a fucking artillery shell under your chair and you better hope that it doesn't blow off anything important when it goes off!"

"Cadman, you are a fucking bitch! All I'm trying to do is – "

"Steal my property and ruin my set-up! Just because I have tits doesn't mean I didn't play with fireworks when I was a kid!"

"You don't have the display set-up correctly! You have the spacing all fucked up and you're going to kill us all with your shoddy excuse of a light show – "

"_Excuse me_? I am the fucking explosives expert around here and I know what I'm doing with these goddamn fireworks, so you and Zelenka can pull your heads out of your asses and – "

"I think someone needs to remind Lieutenant Cadman that there are children in the vicinity and that she should control her language," Teyla said pointedly, shifting the rucksack on her shoulder, "If one more Athosian parent tells me that their children have been cursing like Marines, you and I shall have words."

John gave her his best _"They're not my Marines, yell at Lorne,"_ look, but she didn't fall for it today and broke his will with her _"I'll beat you with my sticks if you don't take charge right now"_ glare.

He sighed and turned around, shielding his eyes from the glare of the sun coming over the ridge. "Cadman!"

A moment later, Cadman appeared on the ridge edge, dressed in a black tank top and her BDU shorts, blonde braid thrown over her shoulder and a roll of fuse line hanging around her neck. John thought she should really think about marketing her image to Mattel – _G.I. Laura _would be a bestseller.

"Yes sir?"

"Tone down the language, will ya? We've got virgin ears runnin' around. And tell McKay to get his ass" – Teyla threw another glare over her shoulder – "away from those fireworks before he blows up five-sixths of the mainland."

"Aye-aye, sir!" Cadman called as Rodney yelled, "I hope you choke on your greasey hamburger, you American oppressor – OUCH!"

John and Teyla both ignored the sound of Cadman's fist implanting itself in Rodney's upper arm, and continued down the beach toward the cove where camp had been set and the others have gathered.

"Does it seem as though Dr. McKay has been rather irritable for the last few days?" Teyla remarked, ignoring John's offered hand as she climbed over the tree trunk blocking their path, "More than usual anyway?"

"Oh, McKay's just been pissy because we had to combine Canada Day and Independence Day celebrations. He thinks it's some big conspiracy on _my_ part to belittle glorious Canada and ranted about it to _everyone_. All it really comes down to is the fact that we don't have the time or resources to plan two major celebrations within three days of each other. He's blowing it out of proportion, calling it a travesty and me a loathsome and oppressive tyrant and whatnot."

"But are we not holding the join celebration on _your_ country's holiday?" Teyla said, quirking an eyebrow, "Perhaps a neutral day could have been found so both parties would have been satisfied and no one had been offended?"

They were nearly to the cove by now; John could hear individual voices and sounds, and spotted a few people out in the water or on the beach ahead of them. Someone waved – Jinto, maybe, because he had been swimming when he and Teyla had gone back to the Athosian settlement – and they returned the gesture.

"_Elizabeth_ made that call, not me," John said, safely passing off the blame as he had been all week. "Besides, she's better at explaining the concept of 'majority rules' to irate Canadians than I am."

Teyla gave him one of her _"No, really?"_ smiles and said nothing until they reached the cove where John was immediately accosted with glares from a group of expedition members covered in Canadian paraphernalia and faces painted in red, white, and maple leaf. Chuck whistled a few bars of "O, Canada" in a defiant manner as he passed.

"See?" John hissed, "Just because General O'Neill sent me five thousand dollars worth of fireworks to piss around with and I gave them to Cadman and the Marines to blow up instead of McKay, does not give him the right to create a base-wide international incident in my name!"

"Hello Halling," Teyla said, completely ignoring his well-placed bitching as they ducked into the hunter's tent where the Athosian man was waiting. She pulled the rucksack off her shoulder. "Here are Neomi's spices and herbs, as well as the extra skinning knives and tools you requested."

Halling caught John's sour expression, smiled ruefully, and accepted the rucksack.

"Thank you Teyla," Halling replied, inclining his head, "Neomi will be most grateful…especially if _you_ stay away from her cooking tent this time."

"I was only trying to be of help!" Teyla cried, her cheeks coloring heavily.

"Yes, well, we do not want the Lanteans to think that all of us are terrible cooks, do we?" Halling teased, "Hello Colonel Sheppard."

"Teyla can't cook?" John replied, delighted. Finally, he had some dirt to throw back at her when she chastised him during sparring sessions!

"With all of her responsibilities, she hasn't had the time to learn properly and I'm afraid she just doesn't have the patience for it."

"Maybe she just needs to _practice_," John said smugly, smirking at her.

Teyla elbowed him in the side, John yelped because her elbows were fucking _bony_, and Halling laughed.

"She is not the only one," he said, shaking his head and turning to the back of the tent. "Ronon is still out with the party hunting the _shisma_ we will be preparing for dinner. Hopefully, he learned his lesson last time and will not use that gun of his. Charred _shisma_ is not exceptionally delicious. I expect that they will be returning within the hour, so unless you would like to remain to skin the animal…"

"Message received, Halling," John wheezed, rubbing his side. "Let's go, Teyla."

"Halling, have you seen Captain Samuels?" she asked, ignoring him again, "He asked me to retrieve some of our lighters for him."

"Captain Samuels," Elizabeth said ominously from behind, "is currently, as he so eloquently put it, 'blowing shit up' in the woods with fireworks."

Samuels, if John remembered correctly, was the Marine who had demolished a previously undiscovered Ancient base on the mainland with an unnecessarily huge amount of firepower because he felt like it and had earned latrine duty (and the science staff's eternal hatred) for a month.

"Well, good for him. Gets it out of his system so he _isn't_ blowing shit up on the North Pier a week from now."

"Did I mention that 'shit' also includes his fellow Marines?"

"Ah."

John motioned for Teyla to run far _far _away, summoned his absolute best _"They're not my Marines, yell at Lorne" _expression (again), and turned.

Elizabeth, casually dressed in a blue shirt and jeans, had her arms crossed over her chest and fury twisted her usually pleasant features. His look must be losing its potency because it did nothing to soften the stiff line of her mouth. Good thing she didn't have any sticks, otherwise John was pretty sure she would be beating him over the head with them right about now.

"Ah? _Ah_? _Your _Marines are shooting bottle rockets, roman candles, the _legal_ M-80s, and god knows what _else_ at each other, and all you can say is '_ah_'?"

Teyla had clearly misinterpreted his warning and was still hanging around – probably just to watch Elizabeth blow up at him. And here John had thought fireworks would be the only things exploding today.

"Were they heavily covered and wearing eye protection at least?"

"What don't you _understand_?" Elizabeth seethed, throwing her hands up in the air. "_Ten of your Marines are having an all out melee with explosives! _There's no proper protection for that! Someone is going to lose an eye or fingers or get burned, and the last thing we need is Marines disabled by their own stupidity than by the Wraith!"

Clearly Elizabeth had been brought up in an environment where people played with fireworks responsibly. Or maybe it was a female thing, except – of course – in Cadman's case.

"Fine, I'll go knock some sense into them – " (which really meant that he would be sending Lorne to go knock some sense into Marines because Lorne would be less tempted to join in on the fun) " – if you go talk to your Canadians and tell them that I am _not_ a ruthless tyrant opposed to everything Canadian and that it was your idea to have this picnic barbeque thing on the Fourth of July, not mine, and that they can stop sending me death glares any time now."

"Done," Elizabeth replied, turning on her heel and sweeping out of the tent.

John rolled his eyes and turned back to Teyla.

"She's overreacting. I shot bottle rockets at my friends when I was younger and I came away with both my eyes and fingers."

Teyla rubbed her temples and said, resigned, "Shall we go find Major Lorne then?"

* * *

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